


the lights

by okamiwind



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: M/M, Missing Scenes, star tear disease
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 11:09:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25848583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okamiwind/pseuds/okamiwind
Summary: dimitri was not afraid of pestilence, famine, or death. dimitri certainly was not afraid of war.dimitri was afraid of what felix could do to him with only a single word.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 14
Kudos: 32





	the lights

_They were close once._

_Quite close, everyone said._

_Didn't they say it?_

_Dimitri did not like to think about those days much. It hurt too much. He remembered leaning on Felix as if he was another limb, just another part of his body. They were parts of the same whole, he thought once, and now... now, there was some phantom ache where Felix used to be._

_It called for him, for his aching flesh, his bones filled with spidering blood._

_Felix would not answer that call, and Dimitri never expected him to._  
  


☆

The first time the stars fall from his eyes, Dimitri is in his room at the monastery. It was a hard day, but no harder than the rest. No different than the rest.

 _Pull yourself together_ , he thinks to himself, and the tears begin to fall as he collapses into his bed. 

It is just the weight of the world on his shoulders. It is just the voices of the dead. He does not care so much about what Felix thinks about him. Felix can think whatever he likes. 

What was the word he had used? _Ugly_ , Dimitri thinks in recollection. Not his face, but his heart. He is ugly through and through, rotten down to his core. 

He still loves Felix with everything he possesses, but perhaps that is the ugliest thing about him. He could never let go of much of anything. 

He chokes on his tears, and then, his body seizes in fruitless pain. Confused, shocked, he turns over onto his back, and he touches his face, his eyes. 

Twinkling stars slip down his face, and he gasps as they bleed to the floor, lighting up even the darkest corner.  
  


☆

He thought it was a trick. He thought he was hallucinating.

Each time he cries, the stars fall, and each time the stars fall, it feels like knives. 

He locks himself in his room until it's over, curled into a ball on his bed, but it hurts more and more. The pain is excruciating, bright, and it mocks him with the glittering sound of wind chimes. It feels like his eyes are bleeding, and yet, whenever he checks himself in the mirror after the fit has passed, he looks fine. _He looks absolutely fine._

_What's happening to me,_ Dimitri wonders, touching his face, wiping away what's left. _When will this nightmare end?_

He steps out of his room afterwards, searching for Dedue, but instead, Felix is waiting for him. His heart clenches in his chest, and he blinks quickly. _Stay back_ , he warns himself. _Don't show him._

"What are you always doing in there?" Felix asks, face twisting into a scowl. "Shouldn't you be training?" 

"I've got plenty of time for that," Dimitri says, and he turns away, hoping to shield himself from Felix's intense scrutiny. "If you'll excuse me." 

"No, I want to know," Felix says. "You barely talk to anyone anymore." 

"I thought you didn't want me to speak." 

"To _me_ ," Felix clarifies like Dimitri is some kind of fool. "Besides, what kind of heir to the throne hides away like a coward?" 

Felix can hurt Dimitri with so fucking little, and Dimitri isn't even sure that Felix knows. He brushes a singing star away from his face as he goes to the dining hall, hoping that it isn't too late to meet with some of his classmates to assuage their fears. 

_What might that be like_ , he thinks to himself, eating but never tasting. _Losing fears instead of gaining them?_  
  


☆

They spar day after day, and Dimitri feels weaker and weaker.

"You've not lost the murderous look in your eye, but you've certainly lost your edge," Felix says with a smile, besting him over and over again. "What's gotten into you, boar?" 

Dimitri doesn't answer, and he goes at him again. He thinks of the rebellion, thinks of the day he lost Felix forever. He's right in front of Dimitri, but he is lost. Dimitri will never get the chance to tell him how he truly feels, will never have the opportunity to show him that he is more than this, more than the _shell_ he's become. He wants to tell Felix that he can be better, that _together_ he could be better, but... _oh, goddess, it's too hard._

Felix puts him on the ground, the tip of his sword at Dimitri's throat, and he is smiling. Such a rare, beautiful thing. Something like the blue sea star. 

Dimitri closes his eyes, trying to hold all the shimmering light inside him until he can get back to his room, a torrent of effulgent tears. He clutches his stomach as he weeps, and he thinks of Felix's smile. That rare, beautiful star.  
  


☆

He is waiting for Felix at the training grounds because even though it hurts, he cannot help himself. He is addicted to the pain of needing Felix. He is hopelessly devoted to this blessed flagellation. He wouldn't keep coming back if he didn't think it was something that he had earned. He wouldn't be sick with the stars if he wasn't meant to be.

Lance across his lap, finger stroking softly against the blade, he thinks about what's past. Even though it hurts, he thinks about when they were young. The stars pool in his eyes, and it sizzles with a blistering agony. He laughs softly as the stars fall down his face. 

He is so foolish. So stupid. 

The hard sound of the giant wooden doors creaks, and Dimitri panics. He stands, brushing his face clean, and he takes several deep breaths as he tries to put on a composed face. 

Felix happens through, and goddess, he can see right through him. 

"What's wrong with you?" He chucks his sword belt to the ground, stretching his arm across his body as he waits for a response that he soon realizes isn't coming. "Cat got your tongue?" 

"You're late," Dimitri says. "I thought you weren't coming." 

"Well, I'm here now." 

"All right," Dimitri says, and he warms up with his lance as Felix stares at him. Dimitri watches Felix's fist clenching rhythmically. 

"Were you _crying_?" Felix asks, and he doesn't sound nearly as disgusted as Dimitri thought he might, saying those words. 

"No," Dimitri says plainly. 

"Don't you _lie_ to me." 

"After all this time? I would not lie to you," Dimitri says, another lie after another. 

Felix makes a sound of fury as he turns around, grabbing his sword belt. He does not give Dimitri another word before he leaves, and why would he?

He brushes another star away, but one falls, the chime of it dampened by the dirt.  
  


☆

Everything goes wrong, but Felix saw it coming. Always warned Dimitri what would happen. The dagger, the tomb... wrong, wrong, wrong.

Had it always been wrong? Always? Since the very start? 

He cries in fits, clawing at his face as he tries to rid himself of the horrible, wonderful light. 

_Much more of this,_ Dimitri thinks with a delirious whimper, _and I will die from it._

_Blessed be the goddess who frees him from me,_ Dimitri smiles, and the stars sing for him even in sleep.  
  


☆

He doesn't see Felix for years, but that's the worst thing about love. Not even distance, not even absence can make it stop.

Dimitri loses his eye three years into his exile, and it festers as he dreams about Felix. 

_I hope he's happy,_ Dimitri says, the pain swimming in his head like a drug. _I wish he could be happy. I wish I had never met him._  
  


☆

When they meet again, Felix looks different. Better. Dimitri is glad of it. He deserves happiness. Certainly, he does.

"What happened to you?" Felix asks, and Dimitri watches as his gloved hand flexes into a fist and out, almost as though he can't bare to stand still. 

"Everything," Dimitri says, and he tries to be the person Felix thinks he is. 

He looks into Felix, searching him, and he finds nothing to say that Felix has even a care in the world for him. 

"Your eye," Felix asks. 

"A battle," Dimitri says simply, hoping that will suffice. 

" _How?_ " 

"What does it matter?" Dimitri asks. "It's gone." 

Felix huffs. "Suppose nothing has changed about you. Guess you've only gotten more _honest_." 

Dimitri does not answer, and the stars form in the corners of his eye as Felix leaves him to it. He does not see well these days. He barely sees at all. The stars are taking his sight, day by day, closer and closer. 

_Not long now,_ Dimitri thinks. _And then I won't have to see my own wickedness any longer._  
  


☆

Rodrigue falls, and suddenly, Dimitri sees everything clear as day. He blinks awake like he is coming up from the bottom of the water. It is horror, plain and true. For so many years, he's thought only of himself, his ego, his pain, and his ghosts. What of Felix's ghosts? What of Felix, the man he supposedly loves?

"Is it enough?" Felix asks. "Is it finally enough? Has the bloodlust taken all that it can?" 

"I-I'm sorry," Dimitri whispers, and he looks up to the sky, dark and empty. _Of course,_ he thinks, shutting his eyes and letting the stars fall. _All the stars are inside me now._

"W-What are you doing?" Felix asks. "What's happening to you?" 

"I don't know," Dimitri says. "I am cursed." 

"C-Cursed, what are you saying? Are you mad?" 

He looks at Felix's hand, flexing into and out of a fist. He's seen it so many times. Just now, he figures it out. He wants to reach out and touch. They've only ever touched with weapons before. That's the only way they know how to speak. 

"I was," Dimitri answers, "but now, I think I am finally free from madness." 

He takes Felix's hand in his, and he looks at the shock on Felix's face, the spread of warm rose across his cheeks. 

"Forgive me," Dimitri whispers, "for this, and for so much more." 

The silence is full and dense, and Dimitri keeps himself still. Waits. He has waited for so long. He can wait a bit longer. 

"Prove that you're sorry. No empty words, no royal lies," Felix finally whispers back. "Prove for once that you _mean_ the words you say." 

"I will," Dimitri says, and the gap between them falls away. Dimitri presses his forehead to Felix's, and Felix's eyes flutter closed. _Rare. Beautiful._ "I will."  
  


☆

The world is empty of light as they kiss, as the sheets pool around their bodies. Dimitri has never felt a pleasure so pure. He could not remember what it was like to be without the pain of the galaxies in his eyes, but surely, it never felt like this.

Their embrace is years in the making, something that unfurls from tangled knots. Roots in the earth, quenched and spiraling out. 

The war is so far behind them now, all the fighting through. They have grown. They are changed. Dimitri never once expected healing to mean being bathed by darkness. Never once expected his salvation to come in the form of Felix's soft red lips, his fingers in Dimitri's hair. This was a distant wish. This was... this was impossible. Once. 

Felix takes him in his arms against the tapestry of black. They are blessed by the night and her barren sky.

**Author's Note:**

> sry sry just had an urge to write something short and kinda sad today,,,, but ,,,, happy ending, right? we love happy endings 
> 
> anyway, follow me on twitter or ask me questions or harass me over characterizations 
> 
> [my twitter](https://twitter.com/okamiwind) | [my curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/okamiwind)


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